Digitizing Medical Records & The Affordable Care Act

February 26, 2014

Electronic medical records will improve patient care

The effort to begin digitizing patient medical records has existed in the hospital industry for almost as long as technology to scan quickly and clearly became available. In 2009 after image scanning reached new levels of quality in which documents could be scanned at extremely high- DPI, the investments into the technology took off.  Almost instantly buyers saw the advantages of utilizing this back-office innovation. This scanning equipment and its improving software can not only digitize paper records but also effectively capture data from paper forms to be uploaded into Electronic Medical Record systems.  Willis, the founder and chief executive of Patient Link, recognized the opportunity for industry improvement, remarking how it could  save thousands of health care providers nationwide countless hours in uploading data to patients electronic medical records (EMRs), and also carry the potential to profoundly improve and advance patient care. – The Oklahoman (2013). As a result of organizing this data into an electronic record system with fixed fields we would transform the speed and accuracy in which patient information queries are completed.

More recently, we have seen advisers and commentators on the Affordable Care Act ask two strategies to be sought in order to improve patient care. These included President Obama reforming the payment system by ridding the US of the fee-for-service structure and digitizing medical records since they were both crucial strategies for lowering costs while improving care.

“A paperless system would improve the patient experience and bolster safety by reducing errors; it would enable doctors and hospitals to better respond to incentives to provide high-value care; it would lower the costs of billing and filing claims; and the robust data it would yield could propel innovation in personal health-care mobile applications.

Imagine paperless health care in 2020, with no real per capita growth and with most payments set according to value rather than intensity of treatment. That’s a set of goals worth shooting for.” – Ezekiel Emanuel Et. Al, Bloomberg View

 

Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider. We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning servicesdata entry services and mailing/lettershop services. As an SOC2-approved organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.